Just before Christmas of 1776, Thomas Paine wrote “These are the times that try men’s souls”. Thus began an article he called The Crisis. He outlined the circumstances of the freedom seeking colonists and the obstacles and threats that lay all about them. These were critical times. The quest for liberty could have shriveled on the vine instead of producing the greatest nation on earth. We face a similar crisis today: will the United States regain the virtue and prosperity they once enjoyed, or will they be reduced to just another socialist state that sucks the economic and spiritual life out of the productive citizens?

While the American people are living through the nightmare of ObamaKare, the Obama regime is tightening its grip on so many others of our lives. Labor participation rate is the lowest it has been in years. People are being hemmed in by more and more intrusive regulations from the EPA, TSA, DHS and a host of other alphabet soup agencies.

Meanwhile Barack Hussein Obama is fanning the flames of racial hatred and division, telling his followers how much they have have suffered at the hands of the white oppressors. They are believing now, more than ever, that something must be done to redress… or even retaliate… for real or imagined wrongs.

Lesbian activist Masha Gessen tells the truth about the motives behind the drive for gay marriage. The reaction of the audience reveals much of the LGBT accepts the concept of the destruction of the marriage, and the traditional family. Ms Gessen, though completely off base in her thinking, is refreshing in her honesty. She is honest about her homosexuality. She is honest about her goals.

Political correctness prevents many from making anything of this revelation. Even churches that should know better are soft on this subject. To many pastors more concerned with numbers on Sunday morning, the thought of offending some congregants is beyond their comprehension. The nature of the gospel itself is that it is offensive to those who wish to continue in their sin. The question for these pastors is that is it more loving to tickle people’s ears with what they want to hear, or to give them the revealed truth we see in the Bible that calls this behavior an “abomination”.

America is tumbling out of control toward a crash-and-burn impact with disaster, and, for the most part, pastors and churches are asleep–I mean in a coma. Both major parties in Washington, D.C., are selling-out our liberties faster than Chris Christie can swallow a Big Mac, and Christians don’t even roll over; George W. Bush and Barack Obama have created the largest surveillance society in the history of mankind, and pastors lie comatose; Dianne Feinstein and her Constitution-hating collaborators in Congress try their best to expunge our right to self-defense, and Christian organizations don’t open an eyelid; the right of Habeas Corpus, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and our very right of privacy have, for all intents and purposes, been eviscerated by the miscreants in Washington, D.C., and most pastors and Christians remain fast asleep. But let a Christian TV star get the axe for telling a magazine reporter that he views homosexuality as sinful, and Christians storm out of their beds like firemen answering the bell for a five-alarm fire.

Don’t get me wrong. The politically-correct entertainment and news industries are hyper-paranoid about anything deemed to be “anti-gay.” Homosexuals currently enjoy more protected status than the spotted owl. That A&E would attempt to suspend a long-bearded, redneck Christian for saying homosexuality is a sin should shock no one. Liberal actor Alec Baldwin (no relation to this writer)–a darling of the left-wing establishment–lost his TV show on MSNBC for comments he spoke that were considered to be anti-gay.

Am I glad so many people rallied to the support of Phil Robertson? Yes, of course. Was the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain stupid to pull Duck Dynasty products from their stores as punishment for what Robertson said? They sure were. Are Christians who want to boycott Cracker Barrel and other companies that cater to political-correctness within their rights to do so? You bet. People such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have made careers (not to mention millions of dollars) intimidating private companies with all kinds of boycotts. But I must be honest: this whole episode burns the stew out of me.

We have seen much over the past few days about the greatness of South Africa’s former President, Nelson Mandela. We were told about all the inspirational things he said and how he led the effort to eliminate apartheid that oppressed the black majority in his country. It was a job that needed to be done, but under the leadership of Mandela’s African National Congress, South Africa has been reduced from a prosperous western power to a crime ridden third world nation.

Most reports simply say that he was a political prisoner for twenty-seven years. The reality of his imprisonment was that he could have been released at various points if he had simply renounced the use of violence. It could be argued that there are times when that this would be appropriate, however when we see the violence perpetrated by his supporters on their political enemies, we see that much was not done to the oppressive government, but against citizens of their land.

The idea of placing a tire around someone’s neck, filling it with gasoline and igniting is too barbaric and meant simply as an exercise in terrorism that fed the lust for revenge. However, this has all been reported, but generally ignored.

Washington, DC—The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has changed the definition of pedophilia again. In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V) of Mental Disorders, the APA changed the classification of pedophilia from a “disorder” to a “sexual orientation,” but following the public outcry, APA released a statement that it was a mistake. “‘Sexual orientation’ is not a term used in the diagnostic criteria for pedophilic disorder, and its use in the DSM-5 text discussion is an error and should read ‘sexual interest.’”

When releasing the original DSM-V, APA said it “marked the end of more than a decade’s journey in revising the criteria for the diagnosis and classification of mental disorders,” with collaboration from “professionals from the mental health and medical communities, patients and their families, and members of the public.”

“Clearly, if reclassifying pedophilia was merely an ‘error,’ it would have been caught in the ‘decade’s journey,’” says Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel.

So much for the left’s “consenting adults” rhetoric on sex. Forever the consummate conservationists, our self-described “progressive” friends at the ACLU, MSNBC and elsewhere have been ramping-up efforts to downsize from “consenting adults” to merely “consenting” – a far less cumbersome qualifier in the noble struggle for unrestrained sexual license.

Tolerating “intergenerational romance” for “minor-attracted” adults is all the rage these days.

Ever hear of Kaitlyn Hunt? Over the past year or so this poor, misunderstood lesbian woman’s “anti-gay persecution” has become a cause célèbre among “gay rights” activists and other left-wing purveyors of perversion.

Fifty years have passed since Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and game his “I Have A Dream” speech. Much has happened in that time, some good, some otherwise.

During Kings time, black families were pretty much intact and their children were not killing each other in the streets. Sadly, this is not he case today. Some people have emerged to take his place of leadership in the black community. They have led their followers far from the desire to be judged by the content of their character to the point where they are now members of a “protected class” who their betters believe are incapable of getting something as simple as a voter identification card.

Whatever are we doing permitting the world to push us all into a politically correct vocabulary, fully understanding that words eventually lead to deeds. We have allowed the whole PC culture to set the verbiage and the agenda for far too long.

Dictionary.com explains why. It tells us that the noun “politically correct” means:

marked by or adhering to a typically progressive orthodoxy on issues involving especially race, gender, sexual affinity, or ecology.

You will note that even the dictionary site notes that it is language of the progressive left. Unless we have a worldview compatible with the godless philosophy that sees man as essentially helpless and misguided, in need of an ruling class to take care of them – we have no business falling into the trap of permitting the progressive left to control the terms of almost every conversation.

We use their terms, which are never favorable toward the true conditions in our land. We permit them to use the term pro-choice, when they only choice they believe in is the choice to end the life of an unborn infant. They don’t believe we should have choices about the food we eat, our environment, even our light bulbs. It’s time to put an end our acceptance of their terminology which is designed to sound good, and conceal their anti-life, anti-freedom agenda.

Australian Christopher Lane had a great opportunity when he came to the US to study finance at Oklahoma East Central University and play baseball. Unfortunately, it all came to an end when three teenagers with nothing better to do, saw him jogging along a road in one of Duncan, OKs nicer neighborhoods. According to the local police, they drove up behind him and shot him in the back.

This is just beginning to make the news, which is mildly surprising as the victim was white and the teens were not. For those wishing to make a racial deal out of everything going on these days, the murder would be tailor made to open a discussion of such issues… but no one is talking, as happens so often in such situations.

It is tragedy for everyone involved. One young man is dead, three are facing life in prison. Each one with a distraught family. Whatever their dreams and ambitions were, they are nothing now by a distant memory. While there is a racial component, there is so much more.

Whether you agree with the jury’s verdict that set George Zimmerman free, there are a few things behind the whole sorry situation that we need to consider. The most obvious is the racial element that those afflicted with the skin color myopia cannot seem to find release from.

Of course Trayvon Martin was a black teenager. Zimmerman, though he had a white man’s name (if there is such a thing – and a Jewish one at that) was Latino. Since describing him as a member of another minority group did not fit the narrative of the regime and the formerly main stream media, he was called a “white Hispanic”, whatever that is. Emphasizing the Jewish name tied into another prejudice among these supposedly unprejudiced elite and elite wannabees. The whole situation was made to order for those looking to add to the story of black oppression while ignoring the scourge of crime visited on our country by a small segment of that population.

Then we have, what is normal in some portions of our society, the propensity of some youth to believe that the appropriate response to an insult or some form of disrespect is to punch someone in the face or worse. Violence is glorified in then entertainment world that caters to this group, as manhood is defined as the ability to inflict pain and suffering on others. This is somewhat a result of rage built up over the years through the leftist propaganda telling them their lives would be fine, if only people who worked hard and played by the rules would be more fair to them and hand out what was earned by the sweat of their brow.

Reading over some recent news stories I have to seriously wonder about the mental stability and capacity of some of the people making decisions for our country and our families. What is frightening is that when these people speak, the believe, or at least seem to believe, that they are making sense. Then we have the people who blindly follow and accept anything the left does that they believe will get them more free stuff from the government.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz thought she had a sympathetic ear when she told Piers Morgan that ”It is irresponsible and un-American, quite frankly, for my Republican colleagues in Congress to be jumping on this immediately as a political opportunity.”

I’m not sure how it is un-American to attempt to learn the details of an administration failure that led to the deaths of an ambassador and three patriots assigned to protect him. This statement is revealing in a number of ways, but most importantly, is shows the leftist mindset that everything is political… patriotism and love of family have no place in their thinking.

Lesbian activist Masha Gessen tells the truth about the motives behind the drive for gay marriage. The reaction of the audience reveals much of the LGBT accepts the concept of the destruction of the marriage, and the traditional family. Ms Gessen, though completely off base in her thinking, is refreshing in her honesty. She is honest about her homosexuality. She is honest about her goals.

[Editors note: this article was first published in 2009. Since then we have revived it from time to time as the message is still applicable and one we have to keep in mind when hear the politically correct propaganda coming from our progressive government.]

Worshiping at the altar of diversity as advocated by the politically correct elites serves their purposes well, but what does it do for the rest of us? Does it help us unite to solve common problems, or does it split us into multiple camps where all we can see is our competing interests? If it is the latter, should we be viewing this politically correct article of faith as simply a well meaning error, or as a sinister attack on our country’s ability to function and lead the world?

Pursuing identity politics, that is, looking at each person as a member of some small, but downtrodden group rather than as an individual, serves to promote isolation from the rest of society and focus our attention on our differences rather than our similarities. It keeps us fragmented and distracted. We face many challenges in our country today. We need to pull together, but all we hear from our government is divisive rhetoric that keeps us at each others throats. The poor are told their plight is the fault of the rich. Union members are told corporate greed keeps them from getting what they want. One racial group thinks they are being held down by another. While the other group sees their opportunities given to less qualified workers based strictly on skin color.

The left, through the Democratic party has successfully balkanized America so many people see themselves first as members of some sort of aggrieved group that needs help in redressing some real or imagined wrong. One must give them credit for forging this disparate group, with often competing interests into a coalition that keeps many of them in office… even though few of the grievances are ever resolved.

Please be on alert for a new scam that claims that President Obama will pay your utility and cable bills through a new federal program.

How the Scam Works:

Consumers have been contacted in person and through fliers, social media and text messages with claims that President Obama is providing credits or applying payments to utility bills.

To receive the money, scammers claim they need the customer’s social security and bank routing numbers. In return, customers are given a bank routing number that will supposedly pay their bill. In reality, there is no money, and customers believe they have paid their bills when in fact they have not.

Salt of the earth Americans, tired of being told they are an old fashioned minority in an ever changing (and degenerating) world, spoke up yesterday in record numbers. While some just showed up at Chick-fil-A to get a chicken sandwich, others crowed into the restaurants and waited in long lines to be sure to demonstrate their support for a company many in the press call “embattled”. From where I stood in the local eatery, they certainly did not seem “embattled”, but extremely prosperous, serving smiling and patient patrons at a rate well above their capacity.

Many of us who are fed up with the progressives who have seized the levers of power in so many levels of government and fancy themselves so smart and capable that they should be running every aspect of our lives, a la Mayor Bloomberg, took the simple task of buying a quick meal as an opportunity to tell our “betters”, “Not so fast!” Who would have ever thought just a few years back, that supporting several picketing cows and buying an chicken sandwich would be a form of political rebellion?

When Rahm Emanuel commented that the parent company did not represent “Chicago values”, he was correct. The problem for the President’s buddy is that his city is known for gangsters and corrupt politicians. Instead of the intended put down, he gave CEO Dan Cathy, an unintended, but genuine complement.

Washington, DC – The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), slated for consideration in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee on June 12, is anti-business, anti-free speech, and anti-religious freedom. Intended to give special protections to homosexuals and cross-dressers, the bill would restrict small businesses and muzzle those with a biblical worldview.

ENDA applies to an “individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.” “Gender identity” is defined as “the gender-related identity, appearance, or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, with or without regard to the individual’s designated sex at birth.”

In other words, if a supervisor instructed a male employee he could not use the women’s restroom, the employer would be in violation of ENDA. ENDA states that an employer may not “limit, segregate, or classify the employees or applicants for employment of the employer in anyway that would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment or otherwise adversely affect the status of the individual as an employee, because of such individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.”

I’m sure most everyone has seen bumper stickers that simply say Coexist with the word spelled out using symbols of various religions. It is a pleasant sentiment embraced by people who have no concept of evil in the world… almost invariably the sticker is displayed by liberals who believe that people are basically good and only do bad things because we have not provided the proper conditions for them.

The problem is that it difficult to coexist with people that want to kill you. They want you to die and you want to continue to live. This can be a source of conflict. It is also true that you have a hard time living with people that want to take what you possess. Unless you are willing to give away everything and impoverish yourself, this too can be a source of conflict.

This thinking is most often found in the minds of internationalists who try to understand why people are trying to kill us. The guilt ridden liberals assume that it is something we have done to bring about this hostility. Of course our country has done plenty to annoy petty dictators around the world and even some of our friends. Unfortunately, lately we’ve begun making nice with these dictators and purposely giving our friends the short end of the negotiating stick. The people with the coexistence mindset somehow cannot comprehend that there could basic differences that would cause people to destroy their own lives and the lives of thousands of others by flying planes into buildings strapping bombs to themselves and mingling in crowds.

Boston, MA—Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. Section 3 of DOMA defines marriage as one man and one woman for purposes of federal law and federal benefits, specifically joint federal tax returns, Social Security survivor benefits, and federal employee health insurance and medical benefits. Not at issue in this ruling are the other parts of DOMA, including the section that says states may define their own marriage policy and are not required to accept a sister state’s same-sex marriage.

“This ruling makes no sense. A state cannot dictate the kind of benefits the federal government must provide,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “If a state recognizes polygamy, does that mean that the federal government must also recognize multiple spouses? Absolutely not! This decision is the proverbial tail wagging the dog.”

We have watched our leaders in Washington wobble like Weebles when it comes to making hard decisions. Often, when the choice is obvious, they still can’t bring themselves to stand up for their country. We’ve seen Senator Darryl Issa’s fine work in building the case against Attorney General Eric Holder… but will the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives move forward in dealing with this racist menace to our world? Not on your life!

These people are more interested in their positions and keeping the District of Corruption on an even keel. None are worthy of our predecessors like Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. None would show up in President Kennedy’s book Profiles in Courage. Yet there are some who do show signs of backbone – some who are willing to take positions that will have them pilloried in the press and even, if we follow history, could place them in physical danger.

One such legislator is Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall. One of the functions of the Old Dominion’s House of Delegates is looking into the qualifications of potential judges. As Victoria Cobb from The Family Foundation commented, “The General Assembly is tasked with reviewing and certifying judges. If that is little more than a rubber stamp, it means nothing. It has a duty to block judges deemed unqualified or unfit for the bench.”

Barack Hussein Obama has finally publicly endorsed the idea of marriage between members of the same sex. This move should come as no surprise to anyone who as been paying attention, and many, including former presidential candidate Rick Santorum see the move as the end of a “charade” rather than the touted “evolution” of a position.

It is a necessary “evolution” for Obama as homosexuals are one of his key constituent groups. This happens because the Democrat Party, for all their rhetoric about standing up for the “common man”, really only sees constituency groups. They think of people as part of groups based electoral preferences. Are they union members? Do they work for the government? What is their race? We are told they are fighting racism by treating people differently and regarding them as worthy of assistance with taxpayer dollars because of their race.

In this case, though, they are segmented by sexual preference. The homosexual community had not been quite so free with their money or enthusiasm this time around as they were awaiting the announcement we heard today. Many were happy with the press conference… the hastily prepared press conference. They had pushed for the removal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” from the military. The got it, and wanted more.

[Editors note: this story illustrates the importance of even local elections in selecting the people who hold responsible positions at all levels. Cases like this bring to our consideration of what a law abiding citizen is and how far we can go in following our leaders and what we must do when faced with situations like this.]

Hutchinson, KS – The battle for our religious rights and moral values is now being fought in Hutchinson, Kansas. On May 15, the city council of the small town, just northwest of Wichita, will vote on whether to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the list of other protected classes, such as race, age, and disability. If passed, this new law will destroy the “free exercise of religion” in Hutchinson:

First Baptist Church on Main Street will be required to rent their facilities for drag-queen parties and homosexual “commitment ceremonies.”

Abundant Life Childcare, northeast of town, will be forced to hire cross-dressers to supervise children.

On April 20, 2012, a 15 year old black boy name Alton Hayes, and one of his friends came up behind a 19 year old white man, robbed him and them violently beat him up, kicking him repeated in the head with their boots. When arrested, the black boy told police he did it because he was angry over the Trayvon Martin killing.

In Kansas City, Missouri, on April 15 two black youths followed a 13 year old white child home, then grabbed him, threw him to the ground, poured gasoline on him and lit the liquid with a match. The boy suffered first and second degree burns on his arms, torso, and face and his lungs were seared from breathing the flames.

On April 24 in Mobile, Alabama a gang of around 20 blacks attacked a white man, Matthew Owens, on his front porch, beating him with paint cans, bricks, and metal pipes. As the gang of blacks left the scene one of them was heard to say, “This is justice for Trayvon.” The victim is currently in critical condition. The police have not made any arrests so far.

The Federal Department of Justice was quick to investigate the Trayvon Martin shooting as a hate crime but have said absolutely nothing about these incidents of black on white hate crimes. The Black Panthers put a $10,000 bounty on George Zimmerman, a “white” man and the DOJ has said nor done anything about it. President Obama was quick to comment on the Trayvon Martin shooting, condemning it but instead of trying to calm down the anger in the black community he has said absolutely nothing about the unprovoked and violent crimes committed by blacks because of the Martin shooting, thereby encouraging such action through his silence.

I’m sure I’ll get all sorts of negative reaction to this, but there are some things that need to be discussed. Initial reports by the formerly mainstream media and later reports on the death of Florida youth, Trayvon Martin, simply do not match… which leads us to wonder what actually happened that awful night. It seems that Mark Twain knew what he was talking about when he said, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

Initial television reports told the story of witnesses seeing and hearing Neighborhood Watch member George Zimmerman being beaten by Martin before the shooting. Later reports bypassed that story and just reported that Zimmerman shot and unarmed young man. It’s hard to tell what actually happened when those telling the story don’t seem to have agreement as to what actually happened.

It is interesting that the media has no problem shaping a story to meet their particular slant or viewpoint. For example, the generally accepted picture everyone has seen is of a clean cut, smiling 14 year old, rather than the picture of the gang banger that supposedly came from the victim’s Facebook page. It also goes the other way, as they tend to show a five year old booking photo of the shooter rather than anything recent that reflects his current life situation.

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza is a smart guy, so when he misfires as badly as he did in his March 5, 2012 column, “In GOP circles, some wonder whether the party needs to lose big to eventually win” one can’t help but wonder whether if inside the liberal bubble of The Post’s newsroom, history has died, or if Cillizza intentionally chose to ignore the facts in order to manage a result – namely the nomination of moderate establishment Republican Mitt Romney.

Cillizza’s premise in the column is that when Republicans nationalize presidential campaigns and run as conservatives they are foreordained to lose — because in 1964, Barry Goldwater ran as a conservative and lost.

The support for this argument seems to be the self-serving comment of an unnamed establishment Republican figure who warns against nominating a strictly conservative candidate (like former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum), and the assumption on Cillizza’s part that Goldwater’s opponent at the 1964 Republican convention — New York’s liberal Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller — would have done better against Lyndon Johnson in the ’64 general election.

Many years ago, our forefathers agreed that all men were created equal. This was a giant step forward as the world they lived in was dominated by a stratified society composed of the ruling class and peasants… and there was no movement between, or association with, members of the opposite class. The founders understood that the One who Created each of us did not play favorites and everyone stood before Him on equal footing.

Today, we are governed by another ruling class who, at best, gives lip service to the Creator and, at worst, wants Him banned from public discourse, lest their humanistic lies be exposed. They are the ones who determine who is favored and who is shunned. They decide who deserves the good will of the state and who requires observation.

Here is where we run into the idea of the “protected class” of citizens. These are people who don’t always have an easy time of life. It could be that they have some physical situation, or some lifestyle choice situation that is different than most. However, the common denominator is that the Democrat Party has managed to create a dependency on government in these citizens and, pretty well, takes them for granted at the polling place… sometimes multiple times in a cycle. Foolishly, the other party bought into the compassionate sounding names they gave the laws and embraced them as well.

As I was growing up, hearing about the speeches and marches of Martin Luther King, much of what I heard was that he was stirring up trouble where he had no business. In the rural northeast there was little knowledge or understanding of the situations he was fighting against. There was only one black student in my high school graduating class and she was kind of cute and fit in with everyone, so I could not comprehend what the fuss was all about.

It was only later, after Dr. King was gone, and I saw grown men with dark skin addressed as “Boy” and saw pictures of segregated facilities that I began to grasp the struggles of freedom fighters like Martin Luther King Jr and others like Medgar Evers.

Our Declaration of Independence enshrined the words “all men are created equal”. Correctly it does not specify all men of a certain color, a particular economic class or those connected to the “ruling class”. It says all men are created equal. It does not say that some are only three fifths equal as some in congress specified so as to obtain congressional representation, yet not recognize the humanity of some citizens.

“Photo ID laws are very similar to a poll tax,” whines Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Later she adds, “there really aren’t many instances of voter fraud.” Such is the fantasy world the wild haired legislator lives in. She thinks it is terrible that people have to identify themselves when the cast a vote that helps determine whether our country lives or dies.

In her world, there is no guile in the Democrat voter base that continuously votes itself more and more benefits from the public treasury. She complains that her constituency has a higher proportion of members with no government supplied ID. She says it is difficult for them to get such an ID. This is interesting as so many have found a way to fill out the forms necessary to receive benefits at major expense to the taxpayers.

The point is that if is important enough to sign up for benefits, shouldn’t voting be at least equally important? It seems to be one more case of the progressives looking to do things for the people that really should be doing for themselves. By doing this, they are really diminishing the people they are attempting to help.

The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. (Genesis 11:6 NIV)

When our country was founded well over two hundred years ago, the citizens were neither perfect or marching in lock step, yet there was a form of Christian consensus. There was a general agreement on what constituted right and wrong. There was an agreement on the rights and duties of citizenship in this great land. Because of this the people were happy and productive – creating the most prosperous nation on earth.

Sure there were conflicts. There were those who desired to take advantage of the good people… both inside and outside the government. In spite of this the sense of common values and common destiny held us together even through our darkest hours. This sense of common values kept us from fragmenting ourselves into ineffective and hostile tribes that could only succeed at the expense of others.

For ages, students of human psychology have debated the relative impacts of nature and nurture in determining individual development. In other words, what characteristics are we born with, and which ones develop as a result of outside influences and life experiences. For decades, the American Psychological Association regarded homosexuality as an aberrant condition that could be treated and corrected.

It was long understood that boys growing up without a strong male presence, particularly those with a dominating female presence, would be more inclined toward homosexual behavior Much of the behavior was attributed to environmental factors, which led to the belief that it could be corrected.

Then came the politically correctness revolution. Springing to life in academia, this political correctness sought to minimize social and institutional offense in gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts by declaring certain ideas, language, ideas and behavior to be inappropriate and off limits in the supposedly open and tolerant world then envisioned.

Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. Luke 11:17b (NIV)

In Federalist Number 2, John Jay makes the point that this country came together as one to defeat the most awesome power in the world to win its independence. He, like other founders, believed that divine providence brought together this unique group of people with a common world view and a common love for liberty. His point point was that most people at the time had a common set of values and this allowed them to pull together in a common direction. This also led them to see everyone as their neighbor… and they looked out for their neighbors.

This is true today, unity is the key to success in an organization as well as a nation. As flawed as they are, most Republicans try to see people as individuals and as Americans. Sometimes they find themselves in a position of telling us that what is good for corporations is good for Americans – whether it is true in the particular situation or not.

On the other hand, we have another party that seeks to maintain its prosperity by keeping segments of the American people constantly up in arms about some real or imagined sleight at the hands of society in general, or some other group of people in particular. These dividers have the erroneous view of our world with prosperity being a fixed value… that one persons good fortune is the result of another persons misfortune. This thinking is epitomized by former congressman Dick Gephart’s reference to those who are well off as “winners in the lottery of life” – the implication being that the less fortunate have nothing to do with their lot in life and they just are the losers in the “lottery of life”. Read more of this article »

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